Looking around the plot, it's easy to think that winter is still in charge, with plants sensibly deciding to keep their heads down until all is clear. However, look a little closer and there's more than meets the eye. There's erysimum Bowles Mauve that never really stopped flowering, providing lovely light purple spikes that are so important for those early-flying pollinators. Emerging on the woodland bank are snake's head fritillaries, a firm favourite and a flower that seems to relish being in our garden, along with grape hyacinth and cowslips, those lovely English wildflowers that remind me of childhood. In the shade, pulmonaria - lungwort - has poked its flowers up again (and I have added some more.) Our camellia, having established itself last year in our ericaceous soil, has also popped out numerous buds, and although they're not long-lasting flowers, they do have a certain regal charm.
On to the main project this month, which is largely spurred by the really tragic news that Sudan, the last male white rhino, died two weeks ago, probably spelling the end of this subspecies (notwithstanding IVF treatment, which we all hope is a success.) As human beings, we're all responsible for our environment and for ensuring that the diversity of life on Earth continues and flourishes. When a species becomes extinct, every single one of us, and the whole world, is poorer for it. When I was a kid in school, we learned about the dodo with fascination, and by the age of 10 understood extinction, along with what we as humans could do to stop it. Now, short of writing to my MP to urge greater pressure on global environmental issues, I feel powerless to save entire species around the world. But what I can do is provide suitable habitats in my own sphere of influence, in which local wildlife - which is all under pressure from human activities - can live and thrive. I get frogs, slow worms, butterflies, moths, bats, birds, and all manner of insects, which make my life a richer and more rewarding place to be. So whilst there is breath in my body, whilst I have strength to pick up a trowel, or am able to make a wood pile or water a plant, I will not allow that wildlife to starve, be homeless, or to needlessly die. Life without it would be no life at all, and in my garden, I will do everything in my power to preserve them and give them a home.
Jumping off my soapbox, practically this has meant building a pond, both to draw more wildlife in and to keep what already resides within my fences. It's not massive, but it's enough to make a difference, and as it establishes, and as the aquatic plants grow and flower, it'll be a new haven for pollinators, along with all the creatures associated with water. Growing out of the water are natives such as marsh marigold, spearwort, water iris, and golden stripe rush. Filling the cracks in the slabs, meanwhile, I've added aubretia and erigeron, the "Devon Daisy." Here's the before and after shots:
Recently, on a trip to the local Oxfam bookshop, I picked up a lovely book called A Selborne Year, publishing pages from Gilbert White's journal of 1784, in which he records his observations in the garden. It has spurred me, perhaps a little late, to start keeping my own garden journal, a place to record improvements, experiments, and observations about wildlife. One of my major points of celebration this month has been the visit of a bullfinch to the bird feeder, the first time I've seen them in the garden - it's now in the journal, and will be a great point of reference as the years pass by.
And so we come to the Easter weekend, a time to reflect, a time to be grateful for what we have, and celebrate the rebirth which takes place both in the Christian faith, and also in nature, through the coming of spring. To me, it's a time for everyone - religious or not - to share in the glories of new life, with all the hope and promise that this represents, and is all the more poignant given the dreadful weather of late. Now as I write, I realise it's all coming back again - the first bumble bee of spring, the new buds, that wonderful spring birdsong - the first page of the next chapter being written as each day passes, and we once more jump aboard for the journey. Happy Easter everybody!
